Passengers Describe Struggle

December 27, 2001|By Kate Zernike The New York Times

After the passengers had returned to their seats and caught their breath, the co-pilot walked the aisles of Flight 63 urging people to get to know their neighbors and report anyone who seemed suspicious.

The crew members did not think that the man who had tried to light a fuse in his sneakers had any accomplices on board, the co-pilot said, but they wanted to be sure.

The man, Richard C. Reid, was now sedated, shoeless and trussed with people's belts, guarded by a passenger holding a fire extinguisher. But neither passengers nor crew had any inkling of the possible disaster they had just prevented -- that the man's shoes contained explosives powerful enough to bring down the plane.

That came out almost 24 hours later, after they finally reached Miami. For now, those in business class knew only that there had been some raised voices in coach. To some in coach, even some of those who had helped subdue Reid, he was just an unruly passenger, a drunk or a crank.

Authorities said Reid had been through security twice in the previous 24 hours. The first time he had aroused so much suspicion at the gate that airline security and French police officers questioned him at length. The grilling continued at the hotel the airline sent him to, at its expense, after the questioning made him miss his first flight.

The same security official who questioned Reid the first time said he recognized him when he approached the gate on Saturday morning, carrying only a knapsack, and waved him through without question.

The passport control agent did not recognize Reid but still allowed him through after only a cursory check to see that his face matched the photo on the passport.

Some passengers later said that Reid stood out in the crowd, sitting alone, smiling and looking dazed. The Miami-bound flight he boarded Saturday morning was popular with Europeans vacationing at Club Med in the United States or the Caribbean.

When lunch was served, Reid refused a meal or a drink. Soon after, the woman next to him got up to go to the bathroom. Reid lit the first match. A few passengers smelled the smoke. Geoffrey Bessin, in business class, presumed it was the meals.

Hermis Moutardier, a flight attendant, walked through the aisles, trying to sniff out where the smell was coming from. A passenger pointed to Reid. When Moutardier confronted him, Reid popped the match in his mouth. She went to tell the captain.

"I thought it was a mother scolding a child, but you could hear a little panic in her voice," said Bessin, in business class.

Maija Karhusaari, in coach, had eaten her lunch, then started to nap. She was awakened by shouting.

Moutardier had come back to Reid's seat and found him holding a match to the tongue of his shoe. She grabbed at it, and he shoved her, hard. She landed on the floor, four rows back. Now she was yelling, calling for water. Karhusaari passed her water bottle, someone else passed a larger one, others began dumping drinks on Reid.

Cristina Jones, another flight attendant, said she rushed in and lunged for Reid's shoe. He bit her on the hand, drawing blood.

Her scream pierced through the earphones on Marcelo Lu, in the last row of business class. "I took off my headphones and saw a woman run holding her hands," Lu said.

Eric Debry, sitting behind Reid, reached over and grabbed his arms, then his shoulders.

As two other men took his legs, they began calling for belts, anything, to restrain him. Karhusaari yanked her earphones loose and passed them back.

Eight to 12 men wrestled with Reid.

Kwame James, a professional basketball player who is 6 feet 8 inches tall, would later say how hard it had been to pin down the 6-4 Reid, calling him "almost possessed."

The passengers, though, were equally determined.

"There was no panic," Debry said. "I think that very little people realized, actually, what was happening."

When they had finally pinned him, two doctors injected him with a sedative. Reid shrieked.

The passengers took off Reid's sneakers after he was strapped to his seat and took turns watching over him as the plane continued on its diverted path, to Logan International Airport in Boston.